The 6 Kinds Of Headaches. What Are The Signs And Which Are Harmful

The normal headaches are common and we know few ways to remove them. But severe headaches can mean a serious health problem. Mostly, they are harmless but keep an eye on them.

The brain feels no pain. The headaches are either in the tissues around it or in the brain base, muscles, blood vessels, scalp, neck or face.

Primary headache is when medical issues are not related to it.

Secondary headache is when health problems cause it like sinuses, neck injury or strokes. 2% of all headaches are secondary and due to nasal and sinus infections and problems.

THESE ARE THE 6 COMMON HEADACHES:

TMJ

Temporomandibular joint is when jaws are clenched or ache. Even chewing makes it painful for bearing or the jaw movement is noisy. This can happen in the ear, temples, cheeks, neck and shoulders.

SINUS

Even migraines are due to sinus problems. This happens in the upper front face part around eyes, cheeks and forehead.

Usually it happens in the morning and gets worse by the night along with fever, runny nose, general debilitation and congestion. Also it spreads in the whole head and overlaps with sinusitis. There is little difference between sinusitis and migraine.

CLUSTER HEADACHE

These are the most painful of them all. They happen due to periodic cycles of headaches that can become chronic. Usually there is only one such attack, not a second one again. 80-90% of these people have episodic attacks. It happens daily and lasts from one week up to a year! When the cycle is active, it attacks more time in a day or every other day.
they do not last very long, but are really painful. After that there is time with no headaches for about 2 weeks. 10% of these attacks are chronic. And also 10% have signs up to 8 days before it happens like fatigue, stiffness, neck pain, limb numbness. When the attack happens it is rapid and intense.
People wake up with them and fall asleep with them. The pain is sharp and stabbing and in one eye only, the temples or the side of the head. There is migraine signs also like sensitivity to light, vomiting, nausea. Women get these signs more and capsaicin sprays can help a bit.

TENSION HEADACHE

These headaches are common too. They are in the forehead, back of neck and head and feels like a tight sensation.

Sore shoulders and neck are also signs. This means more sensitivity to light. They last from few minutes to many days.

NECK HEADACHE

Also known as cervicogenic and is a secondary headache. It means the problem is in the neck joint. These neck issues are 22% clinical cases. It can be due to musculoskeletal or neurovascular issue in the upper neck and the neck joints, C2/3 disc, neck muscles and spinal cord. Problem in these areas means brainstem signals coming as headache.
These issues arise from neck joints, nerves and muscles in the brainstem tissues where the brain receives the signals as a headache.
The cause of this is dysfunction of the upper neck joint, muscles and nerves and manifests as stiffness and locked in feeling, i.e., face joints feel tight. Osteopaths and Chiropractors release these joints fast.

MIGRAINE

The migraine is a chronic issue. There are main 4 sings stages: prodrome (vague signs from a few hours to a few days, light sensitivity, less appetite, yawning and fatigue, and mood changes.

Then we have auras or disturbance in sensory fields, there are also negative and positive auras. The positive is a bright light or shape in the vision path called scintillating scotoma. This can enlarge and other such positive auras are zigzag lines and stars.
Negative auras are blind spots, dark holes and tunnel vision or not seeing on the sides. If this is not cured it can last up to 3 days in a row. A classic migraine is with sharp throbbing pain on sides on the head and also on one side only.

The word migraine comes from Greece and it means hemikrania or “half head” since it usually is on 1 side only. After the migraine, there is the postdrome stage where the person feels foggy and really tired.